Ship of the Dead

by James Jennewein

  “Lut, listen!” William blurted.

  Lut stopped and heard a dull thunder, building in intensity. Could it be? They both turned to look down the hill, to the rutted path. Four horses and riders emerged from the trees, riding as swiftly as if Thor were throwing lightning bolts at their backsides.

  Dane’s horse, slick with sweat, was tethered outside Lut’s hut when Lut and William arrived breathlessly on foot. They entered and saw that Dane had helped himself to some bread and cheese. He gave them a boyish grin and said, “What’s the matter—think I wouldn’t make it back?”

  “Never doubted it,” William said. Then they laughed and vigorously greeted each other warrior style, grasping each other by the forearms.

  “Where are the others?” Lut asked.

  “We were starving,” Dane said between bites. “We rode all night without stopping. Jarl, Drott, and Fulnir went home to eat, but I came directly here with that.” He nodded to the table where something was wrapped up in his cloak. Something large.

  “A present for me?” Lut inquired.

  Dane went to the table and gently unwrapped it. “I found it beneath Yggdrasil.”

  Lut came forward and with growing awe gazed at the massive book, covered in leather that looked as old as the gods themselves. “Are you mad, boy?” he gasped, once he had regained his powers of speech.

  William’s eyes popped. “Yggdrasil? You took a book from the Norns?”

  “Not a book,” Lut said. “The book.”

  Lut had beheld many incredible sights in all his years, but nothing quite like this, nothing that filled him with such curiosity and dread. Dane had stolen the Norns’ Book of Fate! And it was here in his hut, right in front of him.

  Dane quickly spilled out the whole story, ending with how he’d returned to earth with the book concealed in his cloak. He had found Mist and his friends where he had left them. She had exploded in fury and, wasting no time, had mounted her sky horse and flown off, cursing the human race—and particularly Dane—for all the trouble they caused.

  The old man ran his fingers lightly over the book’s cover, worn smooth by centuries of handling. All his adult life he had been a famed seer, a reader of the mystical runes, interpreting the divine messages or, as he called them, the “whispers of the gods.” Rarely were messages as clear as “Don’t marry Bjorn Thorgilsson,” or “If you go fishing today, you’ll drown.” Often they were confusing, and it would take a runemaster like Lut to make sense of it. Sometimes even he could not deduce the meaning of it, such were the perplexities and mysteries of his craft, and in these few cases he would cheerfully refund his fee.

  But now before him lay the future straight from the Fates themselves. How curious he was about the secrets it held. Nearing the end of his life’s thread, he still yearned to know what surprises lay ahead. He could feel his feeble heart thumping.

  “They’ll pay plenty to get this back,” Dane said.

  “And your price is Astrid’s freedom,” Lut concluded. “The Norns may not take kindly to bartering with a trifling human.”

  “Maybe it’s time we stood up to them,” Dane said. “They make our lives miserable and we’re supposed to pray to them so they won’t make our lives more miserable? Well, now I have the upper hand, and they either give me what I want or . . .” Dane hesitated, weighing a dreadful option.

  “Or what?” Lut asked.

  “Or I’ll burn the book.”

  Lut rose, aghast. “Burn it? You’ll do no such thing!”

  “It would break their control over us!”

  “We don’t know what it would do,” Lut said. “Destroying the book could destroy the future of humankind. I want Astrid back as much as you do, but I will not allow you to take such a risk.”

  “All right,” Dane said, adopting a more reasonable tone. “But if we don’t make the Norns believe we’ll destroy it, they won’t take us seriously.”

  The young man had a point. No doubt the Norns would threaten to rain down scorpions and fill their insides with putrid fish guts unless the book was returned. But if they held firm and made the Norns truly believe that their power over humans was threatened, there was a slim chance the ploy would work. Of course, once Astrid was returned and the Norns got their book back, they could easily do the scorpion-and-fish-guts trick anyway.

  “Can I finally take a look inside that thing?” Jarl said, entering. He came to the book and Dane put his hand on the cover so Jarl couldn’t open it.

  Dane turned to Lut. “I told the others we shouldn’t look inside without talking with you first.”

  “That was wise,” Lut said. “No one should look.”

  “I just want to see my fate,” Jarl said. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You may see that your story ends badly,” Lut said.

  “Badly?” Jarl said, bristling. “Like I don’t die bravely? Impossible.”

  “Even brave men die by accident,” Lut said. “Remember Erling the Lucky? No better warrior in the village. He choked to death on a pork rib.”

  “That’s right,” Dane said. “And his son, Erling the Not-So-Lucky, was struck by one of Thor’s lightning bolts.”

  “If those two knew how they were to die,” Lut said, “do you think they’d ever want to eat pork or go outside ever again?”

  “But if the book says how you die, it must say when, too,” Jarl said. “If they knew the day—”

  “That’s even worse,” interrupted Lut. “If you know it’s your fate to be crushed by a falling tree in five years—you won’t be crushed just once, but a thousand times in your dreams. You’ll become a sniveling, mad husk of a man, praying for the actual day to come so your misery will finally end.” Jarl looked askance at the book as if it were filled with poison. “But if you’re really that curious . . .” Lut made a move to open the book.

  “No!” Jarl exclaimed. “I mean . . . why should I read of my death . . . when, in my heart I know it will come bravely?”

  Lut gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I’m sure it will, son, I’m sure it will. Now, leave me alone to think. I’ll hide the book where it is safe.”

  “Why should you hide it?” Dane asked. “I’m the one who stole it.”

  “And when the Norns come,” Lut said, “it’s best you don’t know where it is.”

  “Their threats won’t sway me,” Dane said.

  “But perhaps their enticements will,” Lut said. “Remember, in the godly realm the Fates are the cleverest of all. Go and rest now.” Dane hesitated, eyeing the book uncertainly. “It is safe with me,” Lut assured him.

  As he, William, and Jarl moved to leave, Dane paused at the door. “If the Norns are so clever, why would they leave the book unguarded?”

  Lut ruminated. “I can think of only one reason. They thought it inconceivable that anyone would be so bravely audacious or spectacularly asinine as to steal it.”

  “Good of you to clear that up,” Dane said.

  After the young men had left, Lut sat before the book, staring at it a very long time. How was it possible that the book held the fate of every human being within it? he wondered. The longer he gazed at it, the more the temptation grew. He had always believed that a man could fool his fate, but now he wasn’t so sure. If he opened the book and read his fate, would he be able to alter it? Or would the words be as if they were set in stone and unchangeable? What if he read, “Lut the Bent sat in his hut pondering the mysteries of fate when he suddenly fell over dead”? He knew that those words would probably so terrify him that he would fall over dead. It would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, hatched by the clever Norns themselves.

  Why had the Norns left the book unguarded? Was it as Lut had said, that they never suspected it would be stolen? Or was there something more devious afoot?

  Lut stared at the book in a kind of delicious agony. If he opened it, his questions would be answered. As a master seer, he reasoned, he above all was equipped to deal with such knowledge. The whispers of the gods ha
d passed through him countless times; the book before him was just a more detailed version of those godly pronouncements. So what was the harm in taking a peek? He knew full well what the harm would be. And yet . . .

  With a trembling hand he reached for the book—and all at once its cover flew open and a sudden wind blew up, howling and whipping at the pages, turning them from front to back. Staring agape, Lut was further amazed to see that the wind seemed to be blowing only over the book and nowhere else in the room. His own robe, so close to the funnel of wind, was completely unruffled. Then the pages abruptly stopped turning and the book lay open before him, beckoning, a shaft of golden light shining on a certain spot in the center of the right-side page. Drawing a breath, Lut moved nearer and peered down at the book . . . and what he saw so astonished him, he nearly fell over dead.

  His mother had gone on a visit to a neighboring village, so Dane found his own house empty and quiet, and after stoking the hearth fire, he fell deeply asleep, the perilous events of the past few days having physically and mentally drained him.

  When next he awoke, the room was bathed in light. He turned over and was thrilled to see Astrid floating there above the floor, her body luminescent, her hair and feathered cloak rippling in a breeze that Dane could not feel. “It was you who took the book, wasn’t it, Dane?” Her voice was eerily flat, emotionless, and for a moment Dane thought he was dreaming. “Where is the book, Dane? You must give it to me.”

  “First you must be freed from your oath. That’s why I took it—so the Norns would change your fate.”

  He saw her face flash in anger, but just as quickly she softened. “If you give me the book, I will return it. This will so please the Norns, I’m sure they will free me from my oath.”

  “Do you still love me?”

  “Dane, there will be time later for all that,” she said with impatience. “If you love me, you will do as I ask.”

  “Astrid, why aren’t you wearing the locket?”

  Her hand shot to her neck, feeling it missing. “I . . . am not permitted to wear such ornaments—”

  “You were wearing it in Asgard.”

  Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Do you know how I will suffer if the book is not returned?” A thick black worm, squirming and glistening with slime, coiled around her ghostly-white neck. “Niflheim is the lair of all that is corrupt and foul. And you will dwell there with me!” A writhing mass of the beslimed worms coiled around her arms and legs, her face erupting in boils, bursting with pus.

  Dane bolted for the door, but the floor gave way and suddenly he was sunk knee-deep in sand—and it was moving, for a hole had opened beneath Astrid and the sand was being sucked down into it as if his house was the top half of an hourglass. “Our time is running out, Dane!” the figure screeched, her mouth a gaping hole of black, rotten stumps. “Give me the book!”

  Dane desperately clawed against the moving tide of sand, fighting to keep from getting pulled under. “Never! You are not Astrid!”

  There was a splintering crash. He looked up to see Jarl and Lut standing in the open doorway. Jarl held the book and Lut held a lighted oil lamp. “Enough trickery, Skuld!” Lut thundered. “Dane will not submit!” Jarl dropped the book and Lut stood over it, ready to pour oil from the lamp onto it. “Stop or the book burns.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” she screeched.

  Lut let drop a trickle of oil onto the cover, lowering the flame to it. “Reveal yourself now!” In an instant the sand was gone and the earthen hut floor had reappeared. Looking again at her, Dane was shocked to find the horrific, suppurating creature had become a regal-looking woman, garbed in flowing robes and wearing a crimson headdress. Hovering in the air, frowning, she then deigned to lower herself to stand upon the floor with the mere mortals.

  “Was all that really necessary, your worship?” Lut said.

  “It’s all you humans understand,” she said with contempt.

  “Allow me to introduce the goddess Skuld,” Lut said to Dane and Jarl, “so named for ‘that which shall be.’”

  Skuld jabbed a finger at Jarl. “You—Jarl the Fair.” Her voice dripped with scorn. “Your fate is worst of all.” Jarl was too shocked to speak. “You will never sup at Odin’s table. No! For you are to die in bed of old age.” Jarl grabbed his chest as if stricken. She cackled with glee and turned to face Dane. “Your theft of my property was all for naught—for you will never see your beloved Astrid again.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Lut said. “She bluffs.”

  Skuld looked at Lut with a haughty air. “Truth is not a bluff.”

  “You left the book unguarded for a reason,” Lut said. “That is the truth.”

  “You know nothing,” she said, eyeing a fingernail as if to see if she had broken it during her overblown, shape-shifting performance.

  “I do,” Lut said, “because I read the book.”

  For an instant her face showed surprise, but her arrogance returned. “Impossible. Only I can comprehend what is writ.”

  “Your eminence, it is time to drop the pretense,” Lut said. “I know a man can have many fates, for there are many roads his life can take.”

  For a moment she was silent, and Dane saw anger welling up inside her. “Yes!” she spat, as if Lut had struck at a secret she hated to reveal. “But each road has a distinct and inexorable fate created by me!”

  Dane was rocked by this revelation. “So it’s up to us to choose the road?”

  “Yes, son,” Lut said. “That’s why she left the book unguarded—to see if you would be so . . . audaciously brave as to steal it.

  “Well, your eminence, the road you laid out has been chosen,” he continued. “And your threats and frightful transmogrifications have been met with courage and cleverness. The test has been passed. Tell them of the task at hand.”

  Dane threw Lut a questioning look. “Task? My only task is to free Astrid.”

  “My conditions are that if and when you are successful,” Skuld said airily, “I will decide if she warrants freedom.”

  Dane would not be at the whim of the Fates once more. “No,” he insisted. “You will promise to free her if I do what you ask. Those are my conditions.”

  “And I’m not dying in bed of old age,” Jarl added. “You have to promise I’ll die heroically with a sword in my hand, or the deal’s off.”

  “It appears they have you over a barrel, your eminence,” Lut said, barely suppressing a grin.

  Skuld glared at Dane with such fierceness he could feel the heat. “Very well, I promise to offer her freedom. But if you fail to kill Thidrek the Terrifying, the road for all three of you leads straight to Niflheim.”

  Chapter 5

  Dane Makes a Deal

  Kill Thidrek?” said Dane. “I thought I already did.”

  “He seems to have become undead,” Skuld said, “courtesy of our distant and despised cousin, the goddess Hel. When we snip a man’s thread of life, it should stay snipped—and we severely disapprove of Hel interfering with our work by making the dead walk again. It sets a bad example.”

  “Do you mean Thidrek has become . . . a draugr?” Lut inquired.

  “He has. And he is in league with Niflheim’s hag in some sort of nefarious business. He must be stopped.”

  “Why can’t you just snip Thidrek’s thread of life again?” Jarl asked.

  Skuld looked at Jarl as if that were the stupidest question she had ever heard, but she answered anyway. “Once a man has met his mortal fate, he is outside of our dominion. That is why Hel uses draugrs—the undead—to sow her mischief on earth.”

  “So basically, all you want is Thidrek dead for good,” Jarl said, interlocking his fingers, casually cracking his knuckles. “You’ve come to the right man. Because I will personally dispatch the draugr Thidrek. Tell me where he is and the deed is all but done.”

  Again Skuld gave Jarl a withering glare. “Do you have any idea how to kill a draugr? Your weapons are useless against the undead. Draugrs are a
n altogether different animal, and to kill them you must use this.” From the folds of her robe Skuld produced a plump and shiny golden yellow apple, holding it aloft in the palm of her hand as if it were something of awesome magic.

  “We hit him with fruit?” Jarl asked.

  Skuld sighed in exasperation and said to Jarl, “I’m so glad you’re not the brains of this outfit.” She turned to Dane and Lut, continuing. “Ordinary steel will not cut a draugr. Only an enchanted blade of otherworldly strength and sharpness will. There is but one man alive with the wile to craft such a blade. Déttmárr the Smith is his name. He is an aged dwarf who hovers near death. Bring him this apple of youth from Goddess Idunn’s tree. Once he eats it, his youth will be restored and he will have strength again to forge your weapon. But you must not delay; his days dwindle.”

  From Norse myth, Dane knew that Idunn’s apples of youth were what kept the gods perpetually young. “Where do we find this Déttmárr?” he asked.

  “Go to the Passage of Mystery,” she said. Before Dane could say another word, her image shimmered and became blindingly brilliant, forcing them to shield their eyes. An ear-shattering crack of thunder sounded, accompanied by a sudden rush of wind that almost knocked them off their feet. The light faded, and when they looked back she was gone—and so was the Book of Fate. For a moment all of them just stood there, bedazzled by the effects.

  “She couldn’t just disappear quietly?” said Jarl.

  “Gods have to make big exits,” Lut explained, “so as to leave us puny humans in awe.” Dane looked down and saw he was holding the apple in his hand. Lut crossed to him, reaching for it. “Give it to me.”

  Dane pulled it back from Lut’s grasp. “Why?”

  “Because our mission depends on its safe delivery to Déttmárr, and you will have enough on your hands leading us.”

  “Who says he’s leading us?” Jarl said.

  “I do,” Dane said. “Because Astrid’s fate depends on us killing Thidrek.”

  “And if we don’t kill him, I’m doomed to die of old age,” Jarl countered. “I have bigger stakes—I’m leading.”